MBfMB 


EX    111  I  IS 


TORTOISES 


TORTOISES 


BY 

D.  H.  LAWRENCE 


NEW    YORK 

THOMAS  SELTZER 
1921 


COPYRIGHT,     1921,     BY 
THOMAS  SELTZER,  INC. 

All  rights  reserved 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 

BABY  TORTOISE 9 

TORTOISE-SHELL 17 

TORTOISE  FAMILY  CONNECTIONS 23 

Lui  ET  ELLE 29 

TORTOISE  GALLANTRY      .            89 

TORTOISE  SHOUT 45 


BABY    TORTOISE 


BABY  TORTOISE 

You  know  what  it  is  to  be  born  alone, 
Baby  tortoise! 

The  first  day  to  heave  your  feet  little  by  little 

from  the  shell, 
Not  yet  awake, 

And  remain  lapsed  on  earth, 
Not  quite  alive. 

A  tiny,  fragile,  half -animate  bean. 

To  open  your  tiny  beak-mouth,  that  looks  as  if 

it  would  never  open, 
Like  some  iron  door; 

To  lift  the  upper  hawk-beak  from  the  lower  base 
And  reach  your  skinny  little  neck 
And  take  your  first  bite  at  some  dim  bit  of 

herbage, 

Alone,  small  insect, 
Tiny  bright-eye, 
Slow  one. 

[9] 


TORTOISES 

To  take  your  first  solitary  bite 
And  move  on  your  slow,  solitary  hunt. 
Your  bright,  dark  little  eye, 
Your  eye  of  a  dark  disturbed  night, 
Under  its  slow  lid,  tiny  baby  tortoise, 
So  indomitable. 


No  one  ever  heard  you  complain. 

You  draw  your  head  forward,  slowly,  from  your 
little  wimple 

And  set  forward,  slow-dragging,  on  your  four- 
pinned  toes, 

Rowing  slowly  forward. 

Whither  away,  small  bird? 

Rather  like  a  baby  working  its  limbs, 
Except  that  you  make  slow,  ageless  progress 
And  a  baby  makes  none. 

The  touch  of  sun  excites  you, 

And  the  long  ages,  and  the  lingering  chill 

Make  you  pause  to  yawn, 

[  10  ] 


BABY     TORTOISE 

Opening  your  impervious  mouth, 

Suddenly  beak-shaped,  and  very  wide,  like  some 

suddenly  gaping  pincers; 
Soft  red  tongue,  and  hard  thin  gums, 
Then  close  the  wedge  of  your  little  mountain 

front, 
Your  face,  baby  tortoise. 

Do  you  wonder  at  the  world,  as  slowly  you  turn 

your  head  in  its  wimple 
And  look  with  laconic,  black  eyes? 
Or  is  sleep  coming  over  you  again, 
The  non-life? 

You  are  so  hard  to  wake. 

Are  you  able  to  wonder? 

Or  is  it  just  your  indomitable  will  and  pride  of 

the  first  life 
Looking  round 

And  slowly  pitching  itself  against  the  inertia 
Which  had  seemed  invincible? 

The  vast  inanimate, 

And  the  fine  brilliance  of  your  so  tiny  eye, 

Challenger. 

[  11  1 


TORTOISES 

Nay,  tiny  shell-bird, 

What  a  huge  vast  inanimate  it  is,  that  you  must 

row  against, 
What  an  incalculable  inertia. 

Challenger, 

Little  Ulysses,  fore-runner, 
No  bigger  than  my  thumb-nail, 
Buon  viaggio. 

All  animate  creation  on  your  shoulder, 

Set  forth,  little  Titan,  under  your  battle-shield. 

The  ponderous,  preponderate, 

Inanimate  universe; 

And  you  are  slowly  moving,  pioneer,  you  alone. 

How  vivid  your  travelling  seems  now,  in  the 

troubled  sunshine, 
Stoic,  Ulyssean  atom ; 
Suddenly  hasty,  reckless,  on  high  toes. 

Voiceless  little  bird, 

Resting  your  head  half  out  of  your  wimple 

In  the  slow  dignity  of  your  eternal  pause. 

Alone,  with  no  sense  of  being  alone, 

fr, 

[   12   ] 


BABY     TORTOISE 

And  hence  six  times  more  solitary ; 

Fulfilled  of  the  slow  passion  of  pitching  through 

immemorial  ages 
Your  little  round  house  in  the  midst  of  chaos. 

Over  the  garden  earth, 

Small  bird, 

Over  the  edge  of  all  things. 

Traveller, 

With  your  tail  tucked  a  little  on  one  side 

Like  a  gentleman  in  a  long-skirted  coat. 

All  life  carried  on  your  shoulder, 
Invincible  fore-runner. 


TORTOISE-SHELL 


TORTOISE-SHELL 

The  Cross,  the  Cross 
Goes  deeper  in  than  we  know, 
Deeper  into  life; 
Right  into  the  marrow 
And  through  the  bone. 

Along  the  back  of  the  baby  tortoise 

The  scales  are  locked  in  an  arch  like  a  bridge, 

Scale-lapping,  like  a  lobster's  sections 

Or  a  bee's. 

Then  crossways  down  his  sides 
Tiger-stripes  and  wasp-bands. 

Five,  and  five  again,  and  five  again, 

And  round  the  edges  twenty-five  little  ones, 

The  sections  of  the  baby  tortoise  shell. 

Four,  and  a  keystone; 
Four,  and  a  keystone; 
Four,  and  a  keystone ; 
Then  twenty-four,  and  a  tiny  little  keystone. 

[    17   ] 


TORTOISES 

It  needed  Pythagoras   to  see  life  placing  her 

counters  on  the  living  back 
Of  the  baby  tortoise ; 
Life  establishing  the  first  eternal  mathematical 

tablet, 
Not  in  stone,  like  the  Judean  Lord,  or  bronze,  but 

in  life-clouded,  life-rosy  tortoise-shell. 

The  first  little  mathematical  gentleman 
Stepping,  wee  mite,  in  his  loose  trousers 
Under  all  the  eternal  dome  of  mathematical  law. 

Fives,  and  tens, 

Threes  and  fours  and  twelves, 

All  the  volte  face  of  decimals, 

The  whirligig  of  dozens  and  the  pinnacle  of  seven. 

Turn  him  on  his  back, 

The  kicking  little  beetle, 

And  there  again,  on  his  shell-tender,  earth-touch- 
ing belly, 

The  long  cleavage  of  division,  upright  of  the 
eternal  cross 

And  on  either  side  count  five, 

On  each  side,  two  above,  on  each  side,  two  below 

The  dark  bar  horizontal. 

[    18   ] 


TORTOISE-SHELL 

The  Cross! 

It  goes  right  through  him,  the  sprottling  insect^ 
Through  his  cross-wise  cloven  psyche, 
Through  his  five-fold  complex-nature. 

So  turn  him  over  on  his  toes  again ; 

Four  pin-point  toes,  and  a  problematical  thumb- 
piece, 

Four  rowing  limbs,  and  one  wedge-balancing 
head, 

Four  and  one  makes  five,  which  is  the  "clue  to  all 
mathematics. 

The  Lord  wrote  it  all  down  on  the  little  slate 
Of  the  baby  tortoise. 

Outward  and  visible  indication  of  the  plan  within, 
The  complex,  manifold  involvedness  of  an  indi- 
vidual creature 
Blotted  out 

On  this  small  bird,  this  rudiment, 
This  little  dome,  this  pediment 
Of  all  creation, 
This  slow  one. 


[  19  ] 


TORTOISE    FAMILY    CONNECTIONS 


TORTOISE  FAMILY  CONNECTIONS 

On  he  goes,  the  little  one, 
Bud  of  the  universe, 
Pediment  of  life. 


Setting  off  somewhere,  apparently. 
Whither  away,  brisk  egg? 

His  mother  deposited  him  on  the  soil  as  if  he  were 

no  more  than  droppings, 
And  now  he  scuffles  tinily  past  her  as  if  she  were 

an  old  rusty  tin. 

A  mere  obstacle, 

He  veers  round  the  slow  great  mound  of  her  — 

Tortoises  always  foresee  obstacles. 

It  is  no  use  my  saying  to  him  in  an  emotional 

voice: 
"This  is  your  Mother,  she  laid  you  when  you  were 

an  egg." 

[23] 


TORTOISES 

He  does  not  even  trouble  to  answer:    "Woman, 

what  have  I  to  do  with  thee?" 
He  wearily  looks  the  other  way, 
And  she  even  more  wearily  looks  another  way 

still, 

Each  with  the  utmost  apathy, 
Incognizant, 
Unaware, 
Nothing. 

As  for  papa, 

He  snaps  when  I  offer  him  his  offspring, 

Just  as  he  snaps  when  I  poke  a  bit  of  stick  at  him, 

Because  he  is  irascible  this  morning,  an  irascible 

tortoise 
Being  touched  with  love,  and  devoid  of  fatherli- 

ness. 

Father  and  mother, 

And  three  little  brothers, 

And  all  rambling  aimless,  like  little  perambulat- 
ing pebbles  scattered  in  the  garden, 

Not  knowing  each  other  from  bits  of  earth  or  old 
tins. 

[   24   ] 


FAMILY     CONNECTIONS 

Except  that  papa  and  mama  are  old  acquaint- 
ances, of  course, 

But  family  feeling  there  is  none,  not  even  the 
beginnings. 

Fatherless,  motherless,  brotherless,  sisterless 
Little  tortoise. 

Row  on  then,  small  pebble, 
Over  the  clods  of  the  autumn,  wind-chilled  sun- 
shine, 
Young  gayety. 

Does  he  look  for  a  companion? 

No,  no,  don't  think  it. 
He  doesn't  know  he  is  alone; 
Isolation  is  his  birthright, 
This  atom. 

To  row  forward,  and  reach  himself  tall  on  spiny 

toes, 
To  travel,  to  burrow  into  a  little  loose  earth, 

afraid  of  the  night, 
To  crop  a  little  substance, 

To  move,  and  to  be  quite  sure  that  he  is  moving: 
Basta! 

[  25  ] 


TORTOISES 

rTo  be  a  tortoise ! 

Think  of  it,  in  a  garden  of  inert  clods 

A  brisk,  brindled  little  tortoise,  all  to  himself  — 

Croesus! 

In  a  garden  of  pebbles  and  insects 
To  roam,  and  feel  the  slow  heart  beat 
Tortoise- wise,  the  first  bell  sounding 
From    the    warm   blood,    in    the    dark-creation 
morning. 

Moving,  and  being  himself, 

Slow,  and  unquestioned, 

And  inordinately  there,  O  stoic! 

Wandering  in  the  slow  triumph  of  his  own  exist- 
ence, 

Ringing  the  soundless  bell  of  his  presence  in 
chaos, 

And  biting  the  frail  grass  arrogantly, 

Decidedly  arrogantly. 


LUI  ET  ELLE 


LUI   ET   ELLE 

She  is  large  and  matronly 
And  rather  dirty, 

A  little  sardonic-looking,  as  if  domesticity  had 
driven  her  to  it. 

Though  what  she  does,  except  lay  four  eggs  at 

random  in  the  garden  once  a  year 
And  put  up  with  her  husband, 
I  don't  know. 

She  likes  to  eat. 

She  hurries  up,  striding  reared  on  long  uncanny 

legs, 

When  food  is  going. 
Oh  yes,  she  can  make  haste  when  she  likes. 

She  snaps  the  soft  bread  from  my  hand  in  great 

mouthfuls, 
Opening  her  rather  pretty  wedge  of  an  iron, 

pristine  face 

[   29   ] 


TORTOISES 

Into  an  enormously  wide-beaked  mouth 

Like  sudden  curved  scissors, 

And  gulping  at  more  than  she  can  swallow,  and 

working  her  thick,  soft  tongue, 
And  having  the  bread  hanging  over  her  chin. 

O  Mistress,  Mistress, 

Reptile  mistress, 

Your  eye  is  very  dark,  very  bright, 

And  it  never  softens 

Although  you  watch. 

She  knows, 

She  knows  well  enough  to  come  for  food, 

Yet  she  sees  me  not ; 

Her  bright  eye  sees,  but  not  me,  not  anything, 

Sightful,  sightless,  seeing  and  visionless, 

Reptile  mistress. 

Taking  bread  in  her  curved,  gaping,  toothless 

mouth, 
She  has  no  qualm  when  she  catches  my  finger  in 

her  steel  overlapping  gums, 
But  she  hangs  on,  and  my  shout  and  my  shrinking 

are  nothing  to  her, 

[   30   ] 


LUI     ET     ELLE 

She  does  not  even  know  she  is  nipping  me  with 

her  curved  beak. 
Snake-like  she  draws  at  my  finger,  while  I  drag 

it  in  horror  away. 

V 

Mistress,  reptile  mistress, 

You  are  almost  too  large,  I  am  almost  frightened. 

He  is  much  smaller, 
Dapper  beside  her, 
And  ridiculously  small. 

Her  laconic  eye  has  an  earthy,  materialistic  look, 
His,  poor  darling,  is  almost  fiery. 

His  wimple,  his  blunt-prowed  face, 

His  low   forehead,   his   skinny  neck,   his  long, 

scaled,  striving  legs, 
So  striving,  striving, 
Are  all  more  delicate  than  she, 
And  he  has  a  cruel  scar  on  his  shell. 

Poor  darling,  biting  at  her  feet, 
Running  beside  her  like  a  dog,  biting  her  earthy, 
splay  feet, 

[   31    ] 


TORTOISES 

Nipping  her  ankles, 

Which  she  drags  apathetic  away,  though  without 
retreating  into  her  shell. 

Agelessly  silent, 

And  with  a  grim,  reptile  determination, 
Cold,   voiceless   age-after-age   behind  him,   ser- 
pents' long  obstinacy 
Of  horizontal  persistence. 

Little  old  man 

Scuffling  beside  her,  bending  down,  catching  his 
opportunity, 

Parting  his  steel-trap  face,  so  suddenly,  and  seiz- 
ing her  scaly  ankle, 

And  hanging  grimly  on, 

Letting  go  at  last  as  she  drags  away, 

And  closing  his  steel-trap  face. 

His  steel-trap,  stoic,  ageless,  handsome  face. 
Alas,  what  a  fool  he  looks  in  this  scuffle. 

And  how  he  feels  it! 

The  lonely  rambler,  the  stoic,  dignified  stalker 
through  chaos, 

[   32   ] 


LUI     ET     ELLE 

The  immune,  the  animate, 
Enveloped  in  isolation, 
Forerunner. 
Now  look  at  him ! 

Alas,  the  spear  is  through  the  side  of  his  isolation. 
His  adolescence  saw  him  crucified  into  sex, 
Doomed,  in  the  long  crucifixion  of  desire,  to  seek 

his  consummation  beyond  himself. 
Divided  into  passionate  duality, 
He,  so  finished  and  immune,  now  broken  into 

desirous  fragmentariness, 
Doomed  to  make  an  intolerable  fool  of  himself 
In  his  effort  toward  completion  again. 

Poor  little  earthy  house-inhabiting  Osiris, 

The  mysterious  bull  tore  him  at  adolescence  into 

pieces, 
And  he  must  struggle  after  reconstruction,  igno- 

miniously. 

And  so  behold  him  following  the  tail 
Of  that  mud-Shovel  of  his  slowly-rambling  spouse, 
Like  some  unhappy  bull  at  the  tail  of  a  cow, 
But  with  more  than  bovine,  grim,   earth-dank 
persistence, 

[   33   ] 


TORTOISES 

Suddenly  seizing  the  ugly  ankle  as  she  stretches 

out  to  walk, 
Roaming  over  the  sods, 

Or,  if  it  happen  to  show,  at  her  pointed,  heavy  tail 
Beneath  the  low-dropping  back-board  of  her  shell. 

Their  two  shells  like  doomed  boats  bumping, 

Hers  huge,  his  small ; 

Their    splay    feet    rambling    and    rowing    like 

paddles, 

And  stumbling  mixed  up  in  one  another, 
In  the  race  of  love  — 
Two  tortoises, 
She  huge,  he  small. 

She  seems  earthily  apathetic, 

And  he  has  a  reptile's  awful  persistence. 

I  heard  a  woman  pitying  her,  pitying  the  Mere 

Tortue. 

While  I,  I  pity  Monsieur. 
"He  pesters  her  and  torments  her,"  said  the 

woman. 
How  much  more  is  he  pestered  and  tormented, 

say  I. 

[   34   ] 


LUI    ET    ELLE 

i. 

What  can  he  do? 

He  is  dumb,  he  is  visionless, 

Conceptionless. 

His  black,  sad-lidded  eye  sees  but  beholds  not 

As  her  earthen  mound  moves  on, 

But  he  catches  the  folds  of  vulnerable,  leathery 

skin, 

Nail-studded,  that  shake  beneath  her  shell, 
And  drags  at  these  with  his  beak, 
Drags  and  drags  and  bites, 
While  she  pulls  herself  free,  and  rows  her  dull 

mound  along. 


TORTOISE  GALLANTRY 


TORTOISE  GALLANTRY 

Making  his  advances 

He  does  not  look  at  her,  nor  sniff  at  her, 

No,  not  even  sniff  at  her,  his  nose  is  blank. 


Only  he  senses  the  vulnerable  folds  of  skin 
That  work  beneath  her  while  she  sprawls  along 
In  her  ungainly  pace, 
Her  folds  of  skin  that  work  and  row 
Beneath    the    earth-soiled    hovel    in    which    she 
moves. 

And  so  he  strains  beneath  her  housey  walls 
And  catches  her  trouser-legs  in  his  beak 
Suddenly,  or  her  skinny  limb, 
And  strange  and  grimly  drags  at  her 
Like  a  dog, 

Only  agelessly  silent,  with  a  reptile's  awful  per- 
sistency. 

[39  ] 


TORTOISES 

Grim,  gruesome  gallantry,  to  which  he  is  doomed. 
Dragged  out  of  an  eternity  of  silent  isolation 
And  doomed  to  partiality,  partial  being, 
Ache,  and  want  of  being, 
Want, 

Self-exposure,  hard  humiliation,  need  to  add  him- 
self on  to  her. 

Born  to  walk  alone, 
Forerunner, 

Now  suddenly  distracted  into  this  mazy  side- 
track, 

This  awkward,  harrowing  pursuit, 
This  grim  necessity  from  within. 

Does  she  know 

As  she  moves  eternally  slowly  away? 

Or  is  he  driven  against  her  with  a  bang,  like  a  bird 

flying  in  the  dark  against  a  window, 
All  knowledgeless? 

The  awful  concussion, 

And  the  still  more  awful  need  to  persist,  to  follow, 
follow,  continue, 

[  40  ] 


TORTOISE     GALLANTRY 

Driven,    after   aeons   of   pristine,    fore-god-like 

singleness  and  oneness, 
At  the  end  of  some  mysterious,  red-hot  iron, 
Driven  away  from  himself  into  her  tracks, 
Forced  to  crash  against  her. 

Stiff,  gallant,  irascible,  crook-legged  reptile, 

Little  gentleman, 

Sorry  plight, 

We  ought  to  look  the  other  way. 

Save  that,  having  come  with  you  so  far, 
We  will  go  on  to  the  end. 


TORTOISE  SHOUT 


TORTOISE  SHOUT 

I  thought  he  was  dumb, 
I  said  he  was  dumb, 
Yet  I've  heard  him  cry. 

First  faint  scream, 

Out  of  life's  unfathomable  dawn, 

Far  off,  so  far,  like  a  madness,  under  the  horizon's 

dawning  rim, 
Far,  far  off,  far  scream. 

Tortoise  in  extremis. 

Why  were  we  crucified  into  sex? 

Why  were  we  not  left  rounded  off,  and  finished 

in  ourselves, 
As  we  began, 
As  he  certainly  began,  so  perfectly  alone? 

A  far,  was-it-audible  scream, 

Or  did  it  sound  on  the  plasm  direct? 

[  45   ] 


TORTOISES 

Worse  than  the  cry  of  the  new-born, 
A  scream, 
A  yell, 
A  shout, 
A  paean, 
A  death-agony, 
A  birth-cry, 
A  submission, 

All  tiny,  tiny,  far  away,  reptile  under  the  first 
dawn. 

War-cry,   triumph,   acute-delight,   death-scream 

reptilian, 

Why  was  the  veil  torn? 

The  silken  shriek  of  the  soul's  torn  membrane? 
The  male  soul's  membrane 
Torn  with  a  shriek  half  music,  half  horror. 

Crucifixion. 

Male  tortoise,  cleaving  behind  the  hovel-wall  of 

that  dense  female, 
Mounted  and  tense,  spread-eagle,  out-reaching 

out  of  the  shell 
In  tortoise-nakedness, 
Long  neck,  and  long  vulnerable  limbs  extruded, 

spread-eagle  over  her  house-roof, 

[   46  ] 


TORTOISE     SHOUT 

And  the  deep,  secret,  all-penetrating  tail  curved 

beneath  her  walls, 
Reaching   and  gripping   tense,   more   reaching 

anguish  in  uttermost  tension 
Till  suddenly,  in  the  spasm  of  coition,  tupping 

like  a  jerking  leap,  and  oh! 
Opening  its  clenched  face  from  his  outstretched 

neck 

And  giving  that  fragile  yell,  that  scream, 
Super-audible, 

From  his  pink,  cleft,  old-man's  mouth, 
Giving  up  the  ghost, 
Or  screaming  in  Pentecost,  receiving  the  ghost. 

His  scream,  and  his  moment's  subsidence, 

The  moment  of  eternal  silence, 

Yet  unreleased,  and  after  the  moment,  the  sud- 
den, startling  jerk  of  coition,  and  at  once 

The  inexpressible  faint  yell  — 

And  so  on,  till  the  last  plasm  of  my  body  was 
melted  back 

To  the  primeval  rudiments  of  life,  and  the  secret. 

So  he  tups,  and  screams 

Time  after  time  that  frail,  torn  scream 

After  each  jerk,  the  longish  interval, 

[   47   ] 


TORTOISES 

The  tortoise  eternity, 
Agelong,  reptilian  persistence, 
Heart-throb,  slow  heart-throb,  persistent  for  the 
next  spasm. 

I  remember,  when  I  was  a  boy, 

I  heard  the  scream  of  a  frog,  which  was  caught 

with  his  foot  in  the  mouth  of  an  up-starting 

snake ; 
I  remember  when  I  first  heard  bull-frogs  break 

into  sound  in  the  spring; 
I  remember  hearing  a  wild  goose  out  of  the  throat 

of  night 

Cry  loudly,  beyond  the  lake  of  waters; 
I  remember  the  first  time,  out  of  a  bush  in  the 

darkness,  a  nightingale's  piercing  cries  and 

gurgles  startled  the  depths  of  my  soul ; 
I  remember  the  scream  of  a  rabbit  as  I  went 

through  a  wood  at  midnight ; 
I  remember  the  heifer  in  her  heat,  blorting  and 

blorting  through  the  hours,  persistent  and 

irrepressible ; 
I  remember  my  first  terror  hearing  the  howl  of 

weird,  amorous  cats; 
I  remember  the  scream  of  a  terrified,  injured 

horse,  the  sheet-lightning 

[   48   ] 


TORTOISE     SHOUT 

And  running  away  from  the  sound  of  a  woman  in 

labor,  something  like  an  owl  whooing, 
And  listening  inwardly  to  the  first  bleat  of  a 

lamb, 

The  first  wail  of  an  infant, 
And  my  mother  singing  to  herself, 
And  the  first  tenor  singing  of  the  passionate 

throat  of  a  young  collier,  who  has  long  since 

drunk  himself  to  death, 
The  first  elements  of  foreign  speech 
On  wild  dark  lips. 

And  more  than  all  these, 
And  less  than  all  these, 
This  last, 

Strange,  faint  coition  yell 
Of  the  male  tortoise  at  extremity, 
Tiny  from  under  the  very  edge  of  the  farthest 
far-off  horizon  of  life. 

The  cross, 

The  wheel  on  which  our  silence  first  is  broken, 

Sex,  which  breaks  up  our  integrity,  our  single 

inviolability,  our  deep  silence 
Tearing  a  cry  from  us. 


TORTOISES 

Sex,  which  breaks  us  into  voice,  sets  us  calling 
across  the  deeps,  calling,  calling  for  the  com- 
plement, 

Singing,  and  calling,  and  singing  again,  being 
answered,  having  found. 

Torn,  to  become  whole  again,  after  long  seeking 

for  what  is  lost, 
The  same  cry  from  the  tortoise  as  from  Christ, 

the  Osiris-cry  of  abandonment, 
That  which  is  whole,  torn  asunder, 
That  which  is  in  part,  finding  its  whole  again 

throughout  the  universe. 


[  50  ] 


i-27 


